March 13th, 2024

Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College was a blockbuster decision that set major precedent for future cases covering the involvement of racial classification in higher education admissions. The Supreme Court found that Harvard and UNC’s admissions processes were unconstitutional, as they violated the court’s principle of strict scrutiny. Specifically, the compelling interests the universities used to justify their admissions programs lacked sufficiently focused and measurable objectives warranting the use of race, unavoidably employed race in a negative manner, involved racial stereotyping, and lacked meaningful endpoints. Note 4 of their opinion created a caveat. It left open the idea that the military may have further compelling interests in race-based admissions systems that were not considered in Harvard. Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision in Harvard, Students for Fair Admissions sued both the U.S. Military and Naval Academies, asking the courts to issue preliminary injunctions based on the controlling Harvard decision. The courts subsequently denied the requests for preliminary injunctions, as Students for Fair Admissions could not satisfy their burden of showing the likelihood of success on the merits. The court’s reasoning is heavily ingrained in the careful establishment of a record in the present cases.

Alex Eckhardt

Class of 2026, Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law